


I Don't See An Easy Way (To Get Out Of This)

by nerddowell



Category: Versailles (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Chevalier-perspective season 2, Depression, Drug Addiction, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grandma will be proud, Jealousy, M/M, Substance Abuse, character exploration, no porn this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 23:52:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11301420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/nerddowell
Summary: The events of Season 2 ofVersailles, as told from the Chevalier's perspective.Inspired in part by a request from a commenter, and partly bythis interview with Evan.





	I Don't See An Easy Way (To Get Out Of This)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ella/gifts).



> Because you know what Versailles s2 didn't have enough of? MONCHEVY ANGST. (That is sarcastic. Don't worry.)
> 
> Title is from _(I Just) Died In Your Arms_ because I, like my modern au!Philippe, am 80s pop songs trash.
> 
> My beta [Luke](https://gayphilippes.tumblr.com/) is an angel, and this is dedicated to **ella** who commented on one of my other fics asking for elaboration/extension of the time in between the 2x04 fight and 2x05 seemingly being okay with one another. I started out intending to write a fic, ~2k words, for that exact prompt. Instead I ended up with this behemoth covering the whole season. So, yeah. Enjoy.

It takes a lot for him to put away the powders, even if only for one night.

He realises, of course, what they are doing to him; the wedge they are driving between Philippe and himself with their influence over his behaviour, over even the thoughts in his head and the words leaving his mouth. He is full of this empty craving for love he is not getting, his own insecurities flitting around and around his head like bats in a barn, and the powders do not fill that crater so much as make it ever larger. Instead he spends too much money,at the card tables, jealousy pushing at his ribs, an ugly green fist around his heart.

He can barely stand to look at himself in the mirror when he is alone. He knows what the court sees, of course, their war hero Monsieur’s spoilt pet, wrapped in expensive silks and brocades and the privileges accorded to such a favourable position in the Prince’s affections. When the powders have taken hold, he sees the same, a beautiful creature blessed with charm and poise and the perfect courtier’s smile. Alone, the veneer cracks and jealousy rears its ugly head behind his eyes, his smile is brittle as glass, and he feels the exhaustion that accompanies constantly dancing on hot coals to keep his lover’s attention on him. And the more he grasps at Philippe, the more he tries to hold on to him, the further away he seems to push him until there is a gaping crevasse between them which he has no idea how to cross.

He at least tolerated the bedding ceremony. True, when Philippe stepped into the ballroom in his gown with his hair swept away from his face, highlighting his cheekbones and those eyes, he’d felt a wave of possessiveness for the  territory he had claimed before  _ she  _ had ever stepped out of that hideous German carriage. His wife. Even in his head, he utters the word as though it were poison. He had tried to entice Philippe with glances and coquettish smiles all evening, even attempting to make jokes about the German woman, who so few weeks before Philippe had been more than happy to deride with him. All his attempts at humour had fallen flat, and Philippe’s hand – so strong since it had been used truly in battle – on his wrist, wrenching his arm aside with a look in his eyes that spoke of everything the Chevalier did not wish to hear, stung like a burn, as though the skin had been torn away to leave the nerves exposed.

He feels entirely burned away. Every glance, every sharp word he had once so loved from Philippe hurts now, as he tries time and again to instigate closeness, to wrap his body around his lover and bask in the affection he is so used to, before being denied, brushed off like a pestering dog. Monsieur, it would seem, no longer has any time for him, so wrapped up is he in his new wife, the accursed  _ poet _ , and all of the intrigues and dramas of the palace.

Wherever he goes among Philippe’s rooms, he seems to see Thomas, with his quick, serpentine eyes and his sycophantic smile, and thin, womanly hands over Philippe’s body as he is ‘taught how to dance’. The Chevalier watches them, Philippe’s gentle smile and helpful voice as he guides the bumbling not-such-a-fool through the steps of the latest court dance whilst the Chevalier, jealous, heart aching, watches from the crack between the doors. They finish with Thomas all but pressed up against Philippe’s chest like a woman, his eyes full of false adoration, and the Chevalier feels sick to his stomach.

When he can take it no longer, he adopts a face of studious nonchalance and walks into the antechamber, chin high, refusing to let Thomas see that whatever tactic he’s using is working, gazing right at Philippe.

‘Oh.’

The tone of his voice already seems to put Philippe on edge, and he can see his beloved suppressing a heavy sigh before looking up at him.

‘I was just telling Thomas that if he wants to dazzle the women at court, he must learn to dance.’

‘Well,’ the Chevalier says, attempting a smile before feeling it crack off his face, ‘I see I am surplus to requirements,’ and continues through the antechamber, with no real direction in mind other than as far away from Philippe and his poisonous poet as possible.

‘Where are you going?’ Philippe asks from behind him, voice exasperated which stings in the Chevalier’s stripped-bare heart, a barb that catches behind his ribs and tugs.

‘Elsewhere,’ he retorts curtly as he rounds the corner, hoping that his response cuts Philippe to the quick as much as seeing his beloved with Thomas had done to him, and Philippe’s sigh of frustration echoes in his ears as he pauses just on the other side of the door, a glutton for punishment.

‘Did I upset your friend?’ the interloper asks.

‘He’s just a little jealous,’ Philippe responds, his tone cold.

‘Of me?’ He imagines Thomas fluttering his eyelashes ridiculously, pressing his body closer to Philippe.

‘Of anything that breathes.’

* * *

 

The gambling was a moment – wine- and powder-fuelled – of madness, of missing Philippe so terribly that he would deliberately make him angry if only to have that frightening passion directed at him again. The torment of Philippe’s raised voice and the steel pointing at his throat is yet a balm to his wounded soul. He has heard from many a nursemaid at the palace that children, when faced with a lack of love from distant parents, misbehave and deliberately act like little hellions to regain their attention, even negatively. He supposes in that case that the constant accusation of his childishness for his temper tantrums and sulking is well-earned, though that does little to comfort him.

The day he rolls over on the bed and declares himself ready to declare war on somebody, with Philippe being fitted for a breastplate in front of the mirror, is the first moment of closeness he and his darling share in what feels like an age. He leans his head on Philippe’s shoulder, the silken dark strands against his cheek and the scent of soap in his hair so instantaneously soothing, and stares at him in the mirror image. He stands reflected in the glass, legs apart in his new stance, one he has earned and yet in which the Chevalier is not used to seeing him, the stance of a trusted and honoured battlefield general. Gone is his soft-around-the-edges Philippe of the years before his exile; the Philippe who would happily spend his time being amused by the Chevalier’s wit and beauty for hours in his chambers, or at the card tables in the salons. Gone is the man who leant back into the Chevalier’s lap like a Roman god to be fed grapes straight off the vine; gone is the man who broke down at the sound of fireworks and was ushered back to the palace straight into the Chevalier’s arms. Philippe keeps his own counsel now.

He refuses to lose something so precious for so long again. Although he is no stranger to war himself, a veteran of several conflicts, he remembers all too sharply the night Montcourt was dismissed, when the pinwheels around the fountains brought a far-gazing terror to his lover’s eyes and drained the colour from his face as he knelt in the grass and sobbed. He remembers the smell of gunpowder smoke never leaving the memory, the sounds of men and horses screaming in pain, and the constant heart-pounding fear of never knowing which moment will be your last. The last thing he wants is to allow Philippe to rush headlong back into that, at his brother’s request or no. He is a selfish creature at heart; he wants to keep those he loves close, and Philippe closest of all.

His promise to follow Philippe to the battlefield is studiously flippant leaving his mouth. He doesn’t let it reflect his very real fear, the very real feeling of impending abandonment for the second time. What is to stop Philippe from departing and forgetting about him, one way or another? For all they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, the same is true of out of sight, out of mind. The thought is torture to him, who had spent every moment of four long years in exile with Philippe ever on his mind, despite the many distractions he entertained himself with in the meantime.

He picks up the powder bottle from the table, clicking it open. He’s had far too much today already, he knows; he feels his mind speeding up, thoughts of Philippe at war, of Philippe anywhere in the world without him, plaguing his mind’s eye; and he reaches for the comfort of the bottle only to have Philippe snatch it away and click the lid closed. Irritation flickers in him as he fights the urge to rebel, to tell Philippe that he does not control him or his actions, but that’s the furthest thing from the truth and they both know it. He owes everything he has to Philippe, which they both are painfully aware of. His lover realistically has the power to send him away – or worse – at any moment, and he has been living the past several months in terror of exactly that happening. All he has are whatever charms he can employ to keep Philippe at his side, and he no longer trusts that those are enough.

He smiles, dropping down onto the bed, and tries to comfort himself with the thought that Holland is, after all, not so very far away, and Philippe, as crown prince, would never be allowed to place himself in any real danger. But he also knows his lover, his headstrong nature and desperate drive to prove himself to his brother and the people of the court, and he knows that whatever dangerous but potentially advantageous situation should arise on the battlefield, Philippe would likely throw himself headfirst into. He is afraid, but he takes heart in the fact that his beloved is stepping slowly towards the bed, following his movements, and the anger of the rapier-wielding angel of retribution he had faced earlier seems to have cooled. Instead, he is once again winding the bobbin of thread to keep the kite dancing in the air, and Philippe is coming to him again.

He laughs as he ignores Philippe’s jibe about the cost of his clothes and kneels up on the bed, purring some nonsense story to his lover as Philippe’s face softens and a smile teases at the corner of those beloved lips. The Chevalier’s heart soars as Philippe teases him with a sarcastic comment, and he tackles his lover to the bed, Philippe laughing and going willingly. He smiles up at the Chevalier as he leans down to press a kiss to that smart, tempting mouth, and he is sure for that sweetest of seconds that this will be the end of the drought until footsteps disturb them and Bontemps drags Philippe’s attention away yet again with yet another problem with the King.

He tries not to take it as a personal slight, but there’s something in his chest, a dark little voice speaking from the bottom of his ribcage, telling him that this is how it starts.

* * *

 

Of course he doesn’t give entering Monsieur’s chambers without any real announcement a second thought, too excited about having found some wools – still a hateful material, nowhere near fluid enough to achieve a suitably flattering drape, nor the sort of thing any self-respecting woman of the French court would be seen dead in, but then, he supposes Madame is German first and foremost, and they do tend to adopt a most Teutonic sense of function over fashion when it comes to dress – that Madame might like. He enters with his arms full of material, bubbling with energy again, thanks to his powders. (He kept his promise for one night, which he felt by sunrise was more than enough.)

When he turns, however, she is visibly undressed beneath her coverlet, which is pulled demurely up to her chin, her face quickly flushing pink as she avoids his gaze. His heart skips in his chest, but he knows – he knows – that surely it can’t be Monsieur, who regards his marital duty as just that: duty, and a disagreeable one at that. He hides a smile in his voice as he asks, ‘Should I come back later?’

A muffled, but heart-droppingly recognisable, voice comes from beneath the coverlet. ‘Good idea.’

His face falls, and his gaze flickers to her, full of betrayal, before he stalks over to the bed, tearing the coverlet off to reveal his lover curled up, one corner of the sheet the only thin cover of his modesty, and glaring at the Chevalier. The pain is physical in his chest, filling up that great empty void in his ribcage until he can’t even catch his breath, unable to look away or process anything beyond the sight of Monsieur lying, clearly naked, in the bed next to his equally naked wife, glowering at having been caught in post-coital  _ flagrante delicto _ . He’s not sure which hurts more – the fact that he had almost trusted her not to do anything to hurt him, to be the ‘harmless’ necessary evil; or the fact that Philippe, who so despised going to bed with a woman, deciding spontaneously – for how could the middle of the day be anything but spontaneous? – to fuck his wife, to go against everything the Chevalier had expected of him, and then to rub his face in it so brazenly as to glare at him as though he were a mere inconvenience, instead of a man having his heart broken in front of his very eyes. He swallows past the lump in his throat.

‘Oh.’ A long pause. ‘I see.’

Philippe glares at him.

‘And here I was, looking for someone to declare war on,’ he bites out, ‘when the answer was right under my nose.’ He stalks from the room, mind reeling, and heads for the gardens, needing a green space to cool his temper. Courtiers part like the Red Sea as he storms through them, none of them daring to test his acerbic tongue when he is so clearly in the very blackest of moods; he passes unmolested all the way to the mazes, at which point he finds a shadowy corner enclosed by hedges and sits on the grass, uncaring of the green stains seeping into the delicate whites of his breeches, and tips his head back to blink away tears. A grown man, hiding himself away among the plants to cry like a beaten child, he scolds himself; hardly fitting behaviour of a prince of Lorraine. On the other hand, it is more than fitting of the broken-hearted and spurned lovers.

The flood of self-loathing drags him under, and he allows himself to rest against the prickles of the hedges and feel the rain beat down as the heavens open. It’s clear to him now that Philippe does not, must not love him any longer; he had always promised, previously when times were not so unstable and his eyes spoke only of adoration when he fixed them on the Chevalier’s face, that no matter who vied for his attentions, no matter which new and beautiful young man at court tried to stake a claim on his heart, that it would always belong to the Chevalier, in whole. That promise has now been broken, as he has done what the Chevalier could never have imagined he would, and given it, whether in part or no, to a woman.

* * *

 

There is a careful truce drawn in the next couple of days after he deliberately flaunts Colbert’s niece under Philippe’s nose in the salons, forcing himself not to jump at the invitation to spend the night together. He  _ wants to _ desperately, so badly his entire body seems to throb with longing whenever his and Philippe’s paths cross, but by now he has lost control of whatever this situation is, and cannot bring himself to swallow his pride and abandon his petty revenge. He is holding the gossamer-thin threads of their relationship between his hands, watching them being severed one by one by his own actions, and yet he can do nothing. The powders make him wild, and his loneliness makes him reckless, and together he is a hurricane of a human being with no feeling but how deeply he hurts.

Of course, with Louis away, Philippe is king in Versailles, with the Indian ambassadors in their tunics and turbans insisting on seeing an absent man. His lover looks resplendent in Louis’ blue silks, his golden brocade coats; he is finally dressed as he should be, like the ruler of an entire country who loves him instead of the one insignificant courtier who stands in the back applauding the longest and smiling the widest, his heart full. This is what Philippe deserves, and it pains the Chevalier terribly that he cannot give it to him forever. Philippe is and always has been the king of his heart, but compared to a whole court – compared to playing at being  _ Le Roi Soleil _ – how could the Chevalier’s paltry heart satisfy?

Philippe catches the Chevalier after a sale the afternoon of the ambassadors’ visit, his frustration palpable.  _ You would have been proud of me _ , he shouts, and the accusation lands yet another barb behind the fragile bones of the Chevalier’s ribcage, tugging at his heart, because he is proud of Philippe and always has been. He feels sometimes as though he is the only one seeing all of the brave, noble, wonderful things his lover does and truly appreciating them, and perhaps when he is thinking clearly he will be able to admit that perhaps Philippe is feeling a little left behind, a little abandoned at the moment. But he is not thinking clearly, and so throws a barb of his own.

‘One does have to have a ruthless streak to succeed in business.’

Philippe chases after him, grasps him around the torso and pins his arms to his sides. The Chevalier feels as though his body comes alive beneath the luxurious shirt and coat, his skin immediately reacting to Philippe’s proximity by raising in goosepimples all over his arms and chest. He has been so starved for this gentle embrace, for Philippe’s warmth against his back, that it costs him a Herculean effort not to positively melt against his lover, right there in the salon. He allows himself to lean his head back at least, his eyes closing as he basks in the sheer innocent pleasure of it. Philippe’s breath is warm against the rim of his ear as he presses in close, and the Chevalier’s chest hitches, that iron band of jealousy and anger falling away from around his ribcage for a moment, allowing his tender heart to beat.

‘We should host a party.’

The collective pronoun makes him pause, not daring to hope.

‘We?’

‘We have a notoriety to maintain, you and I,’ Philippe clarifies after a little prompting, and his hand raises to brush his knuckles gently over the Chevalier’s cheek, tracing his jawline. He pulls his head away, not wanting to push his luck; he has already had one fond caress from Philippe today, far over his usual quota at the moment, and although nobody at court would blink an eye at seeing Monsieur and the Chevalier lying in one another’s laps in the salon, they are not necessarily accustomed to seeing ‘Louis’ doing the same. Of course those at the French court know who is who, but it seems the charade must continue even where there is not a single foreign ambassador in sight. Either that, or they have become too skittish around each other, like unbroken colts shying from human hands.

‘And for this, you have the queen’s imprimatur?’

‘Well, as the King, I can do as I please,’ Philippe says with a smile, and the Chevalier watches him leave the salon, heels clacking over the wooden floor, in a state of confusion.

* * *

 

That night, the salon is packed with all the most beautiful people at court, with one notable absence. Philippe himself is in his chambers, preparing for his grand entrance. The Chevalier stands behind Montespan, enjoying the excitable chatter discussing the Dionysia about to begin. The whole room is bedecked in royal gold, court women matching their dresses to the décor, and his heart is thrumming in anticipation. Philippe enters the room amidst amused giggles, and snaps his fingers to start the music playing. He stands, majestic, beautiful as the sun, shining beneath the great crystal chandelier, and mimics Louis’ pompous, stilted tones and gestures as he creates the toast. He praises his own work, the treaty with India; the Chevalier beams all over his face and looks around as if to check that everyone else in the salon is as enamoured, as proud, as he is. He may be the only one. In this moment, it does not matter; they are celebrating Philippe, and he is at the head of the crowd.

He swans through the cluster of people, beaming, to stand in front of Philippe, raising the crown of golden laurels to place it about Monsieur’s head. The gold complements the lustrous black of his hair, yellow against ebony, and all of it shines beneath the bright lights of the salon to swathe his beloved in the golden aura of an angel. The court laughs as the circlet settles around Philippe’s brow, and the Chevalier steps aside to beam proudly as Philippe holds his hands out in a mocking gesture.

‘The King!’ the Chevalier announces, in his best – and dripping with sarcasm – impersonation of Bontemps, and laughs. His smile widens as Philippe turns to him, taking his face in his hands, and presses another impassioned kiss to his lips, allowing him even to wrap his arms around his waist and lean him back to kiss him more deeply. In this moment, the Chevalier is floating, the corset of iron around his chest cracking and disintegrating to let his heart soar, beating like the wings of a phoenix, against his ribs, a high that not even his powders can give him. In this moment, his chest is full of light, and Philippe’s eyes like stars are fixed on his face and only him, and he holds his lover in his arms. His lips still tingle with the warmth of Philippe’s mouth against his, a tiny sting where there was a nip of overeager teeth, and his blood is fizzing. He feels alive, truly alive, for the first time in months.

After greeting Colbert’s niece at the door, he is pulled up onto the revolving table by Philippe, champagne in hand, and his lover’s hands roam over his back, tugging deliciously at the ends of his hair, all warmth and tenderness. They revolve slowly, watching the rest of the court in their various states of undress and pleasure, and a quick remark, a showing of the wit Philippe so loved him for, makes the prince laugh. Philippe is about to kiss him again, about to bring their bodies together as he had referenced seconds ago, when the Chevalier opens his mouth without thinking and raises the subject of the princess Palatine.

Of course, Philippe grows exasperated and the Chevalier coarse and bitter, and the prince steps down from the table, leaving the Chevalier staring after him and wondering again how things changed so quickly between them without him even realising. The things that used to make Philippe laugh now make him snort in disdain, an expression previously reserved purely for Louis; his hedonism replaced by a pragmatism and stoic austerity that the Chevalier had hoped a fleeting, disagreeable result of his time at war. Philippe may call himself a man thinking for the future, but all the future holds for the Chevalier is uncertainty. If he cannot hold Philippe for even a moment, there is no future for him at Versailles, and that is what terrifies him.

When he returns to the salon a few moments later, Philippe and his creature are wrestling on the table, shirtless, and Montespan is in his ear, whispering her poison. He remembers the days of ‘sampling’ every virgin he came across, girls who would claw at his back and sigh his name as he took them, and he remembers how even the warm wetness between their thighs paled into insignificance against the right look from Philippe, against the touch of his lips to a sensitive neck, chest or inner thigh; how his first encounter with Monsieur made him see stars, and his second, and every after that, even up until now. Or they had, whilst he and Philippe had still been engaging in that sort of thing. Watching the wrestling on the table, the slick of sweat on Philippe’s back and the sinuous movements of his muscles, so like when they engage in their own forms of sport, the Chevalier has had enough. He takes a generous pinch of powder from Montespan’s box, snorting it in one huff, and physically yanks the young Mlle Colbert away from her amorous companions, stepping over Philippe and his plaything with nothing but disgust.

And when they pull the Colbert girl from the fountain, his face blanches white and bile fills his mouth.

* * *

 

The queen’s cold Spanish anger is hard to bear, and Colbert’s grief harder still; but he punishes himself most of all. He wants to flush his powders down the drain, to scrape every last trace of them from his insides, to reach into his brain and claw out all of the twisted tumours they have left there which lower him to such depravity. The Colbert girl was indeed his responsibility, and he should have stopped her from imbibing what she did and doing what she had done, but he was no more in his right mind than she was. It is, of course, no excuse, but it simply proves his point that there was nothing in the world that they could threaten him with that he would not gladly undertake.

The queen’s dark gaze lingers on him, as penetrating as her husband’s, but he refuses to cooperate with her leading inquiries and is dismissed in exasperation. It would seem he is particularly skilled at exasperating people at the moment in time.

He approaches Monsieur’s chamber in a state of mental and physical exhaustion, the powders having more than run their course. He is drained by grief and guilt, constantly seeing the dead girl’s pale face floating in the fountain pool as Bontemps, wet from the waist down, retrieved her from the water. He sees her dead, and he sees her alive; her eyes wide and black with the influence of the alcohol, and the little taster of powders he may or may not have given her over the course of the night (in all truth, he cannot remember clearly); the feel of her pressed against him as he tried to force himself to feel the passion women once incited in his blood. Of course, Philippe – as ever – was the centre of his thoughts, and the jealous, bitter sadness that such thoughts bring up to sit, leaden, in his stomach is not conducive to amorous coupling with  _ anyone _ , even so beautiful a creature as Isabelle.

He had pushed her away with an apology a little rougher than he had intended, and she had left his side to join the more frivolous partygoers. He couldn’t blame her in the slightest; he was hardly the most jovial company. Instead he watched as she laid with another man, a slight brunette with curly hair and a stupid little moustache the spitting image of Thomas, though he was away with Louis. Perhaps that was what had led him to abandon her to the maenads in the gardens; he was imagining things, and needed his bed. He sees threats everywhere, even where none exist.

Soft sounds from Monsieur’s bedchamber as he places his cravat on the table make him stop dead in his tracks. A voice, too high-pitched to be Philippe, cries out, and the iron band squeezes around his ribs. He wonders exactly how many times he must suffer this heartbreak, the emotional upheaval of listening to the man he loves with a pull stronger than gravity – the man who is the planet around which he himself is a satellite – fucking a woman he professes not to love, but who profanes that promise even now with the sound of flesh slapping against flesh and the hoarse, breathless pants of a man reaching completion.

He knows how Philippe sounds in bed, of course. He had been the first there, before the Princess, before even her predecessor. That is territory he mapped out first, with lips and fingers and tongue, territory over which he should be king. He cannot bear to listen any longer, tears stinging in his eyes. There has been many a moment over the past few months when he has felt some sort of betrayal on his lover’s part, but this is the cruellest. This time he has done with her what he has never truly managed to do previously without the Chevalier’s aid, and the Chevalier feels a deep, burning sadness that gnaws at the edges of the space between his ribs, consuming his heart and lungs and everything in between until there is only emptiness.

And the worst thing is that the Chevalier doesn’t truly hate the Palatine woman at all; not even when he steps to the door to hear Philippe with her and clearly lost in his passion, not even when he realises that it has been weeks – aeons – since he and Philippe have been so close.

For someone who has infringed upon the one heart he can truly claim is his, she makes herself infuriatingly difficult to hate.

* * *

 

He has been playing cards for several hours. He feels the clock tick inside his head, the drag of time, slow as molasses. He feels as though he is drowning in it, drowning in waiting. Philippe is asleep in the bedroom – he recognises the pattern of breaths, having spent so many nights beside him. He turns over the knave of hearts, placing it listlessly over the right pile, mind far from the game.

Footsteps are approaching, but he ignores them, willing their maker to pass him by like a ghost – as invisible as he feels – only to have them stop by his table, a pitying blue gaze soft on the crown of his head. Beneath her eyes, on this night, he is as naked as a child, the heart he has so often tried to tear off his sleeve on full display. Seven of clubs. He passes this one over, pulls another from the deck, and then another, placing them deliberately to hear the card slap, loud in the silence, against its fellows on the table, before she speaks.

‘Who’s winning?’

‘He is,’ he answers. He does not mean the invisible opponent sat in the opposite chair.

‘You know Her Majesty has banned all gambling in the salon?’

‘Then let her come and arrest me.’ His voice is dull and flat as paper.

‘May I join you?’ she asks, hands already on the back of the chair. He will not even allow her this one thing, consumed by pettiness and the gaping emptiness by now so familiar to him.

‘I am almost finished.’

She sits down, and her eyes are still on him, painful in their gentleness. Her voice is strident in his ears, too rough, in that hideous German accent, pretending everything is normal and that she is not witnessing the crumbling of a human being before her very eyes. ‘What are you playing?’

‘It’s called cards.’

‘Perhaps you could teach me.’

His head finally rises to stare at her, his eyes ringed with dark circles, curls limp around his face, and his hand shaking where it holds the empty bottle of powder. His habit for them, like the rest of his life, has spiralled out of control, and he cannot grasp where to begin to drag it back on track other than to rewind the clock and have himself… do what? Refuse to bring Béatrice to court as promised? There is no way to regain the trust he has lost, the closeness he has destroyed with his selfishness and his mercurial moods, the mania of his high replaced with this, a death laid at his door and the slow unravelling of the fabric of everything he holds dear. He is Penelope in reverse; the universe hands him chances and opportunities to fix things, to mend burnt bridges, but instead he pulls harder at the threads and unravels them faster and faster.

He doesn’t want her here. She is the root of everything, and his surge of fury is uncontrollable; she is the reason Philippe has drawn away from him, the reason for this crippling fear and loneliness pervading every inch of him. The one thing he could call his own has been wrested from him by dainty – no, mannish, mannish and square and hideous, and he wants to call her every word under the sun except beautiful, because she deserves no less and yet so much more – hands. She asks for a truce, and he smiles, playing with the cap of the bottle still held tight in his hand.

‘Mutual understanding,’ she says. ‘You accept that he is sharing a bed with me out of duty and you accept that I do not seek to drive a wedge between you.’

_ No _ , he thinks honestly,  _ no, I am doing that all by myself _ .

‘I find your terms… one-sided,’ he tells her, occupying his hands with moving the cards. ‘What about understanding me?’

‘You continue to see each other, and enjoy each other’s company.’

‘But without sharing a bed?’

‘Until I have fallen pregnant.’

‘That could take years,’ he says, no longer even protesting. Simply stating a fact.

‘Possibly,’ she says, and her voice is not without sympathy. Perhaps that is what makes him crack.

‘You don’t understand,’ he tells her, fierce behind the lump in his throat, voice thick with tears. ‘Meeting in the salon is a sign of friendship. Sharing a bed is a sign of  _ love _ . If he no longer wishes to share his bed with me… then it follows that he no longer loves me.’ It hurts to utter aloud, as though finally speaking it makes it true. He is so raw, sitting there in the candlelight with her opposite, two outsiders at the court trapped in this endless circle of rivalry and jealousy. But in her eyes are pity and compassion, two things he does not wish from her, and he turns his gaze away.

She takes his hand instead, covering the back of his with her palm. ‘He loves you,’ she says, ‘but you are making it very easy for him to hate you.’

He does not need her to tell him that.

He takes her hand and covers it gently, pityingly. ‘No doubt you are full of good intentions,’ he tells her, a sad smile struggling on his lips, ‘but in case you hadn’t noticed, good intentions count for little here.’

She takes her hand away, her face solemn.

‘I pity you,’ she says, ‘because you’re scared.’

She gets up and turns away as his face cracks, the tears finally starting to spill over. He stares at the bottle, still empty, and feels the raw ache in his chest throb as sobs well up and bubble out of his mouth. He does not intend to cry in front of her, near her, or ever in her presence, even audible; but tonight he cannot help himself, and he crumbles against the table, the stoic façade he had been so desperately hanging on to entirely disintegrated. He leans his forehead on his arms and sobs into the tablecloth, drowning out the sound of Philippe’s breathing from the other side of the door.

* * *

 

When the Princess starts vomiting in the mornings, Philippe calls in the doctor, the spitting image of a doting husband. He stalks into the antechamber of his own rooms with a face that speaks of despair, and levels the Chevalier with an accusation even in his current state he would never have dreamed Philippe would lay at his door. The Princess Palatine ill in bed with sickness and a fever, and he cannot necessarily blame Philippe for immediately suspecting wrongdoing given the number of nobles dropping like flies around the palace from poison in their wine or food at supper; but Monsieur is gazing flatly at him, his brows drawn as if he is looking at a person he no longer recognises, and he asks, ‘How did you do it? Did you slip poison into her wine?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘My wife!’ Philippe roars. ‘She has been poisoned, and I think I know who did it!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ the Chevalier shouts back, recovering from the shock of the news to feel his anger rising. Of all the things Philippe thought him capable of – all of the petty revenges, the childish sulking and the jealous tactics stolen from the schoolyard – he thought him to dare go so far as to poison her? He stares Philippe down, totally incredulous.

‘I might dislike her clothes, I may mock her, I may hate her for stealing you from me, and yes, in the dead of night I may have wished her dead–’ he barks, his eyes narrowing, ‘but I would never go so far as to  _ make _ her dead!’

His own paranoia seems a grain of sand to the beach of Philippe’s right now, however, his surety that everyone at court held a secret threat resurfacing from their years together under Louis’ thumb before the Chevalier’s exile. But the Chevalier could not believe that Philippe, who knew him best of all in the world, who knew that his threats were nearly always idle and who would not realistically lay a finger on anyone who had not done him physical harm first, would believe him cold enough, calculating enough, to be capable of murder. He felt the accusation like a wound in the pit of his stomach, deepening the cesspit of hurt and betrayal and pain already accrued by Philippe’s treatment of him in his chest, and stared at his lover with wide eyes. This was a Philippe he had never encountered. A Philippe so wild with fear, with hatred, that he truly believed someone capable of pure evil.

The Princess had been right. He had finally caused Philippe to hate him. But in this moment, the Chevalier hates him equally deeply, and Philippe’s tears – his ‘I’m sorry’ – do not move him.

‘You should be,’ he answers, and leaves the room. He has had enough of fighting, had enough of the constant push-pull of his emotions and of Philippe’s mercurial affections towards him. They are heading for something, he can tell, some sort of spectacular finale the likes of which have not been seen since their fight with the candlestick and Philippe’s rapier, during which he had nearly been choked to death. Sometimes, in his blackest moods, he wishes that Philippe had succeeded, if only to spare him the further pain.

He later learns the cause of Madame’s sudden illness, from Monsieur himself, at the court gathering that evening. Louis has returned, and Philippe leads the Princess in on his arm, barely even brushing the Chevalier’s coat as they pass. The Chevalier is, as he so often is these days, drunk; he has had altogether too many glasses of wine since the morning’s events, trying to drink away the bothersome guilt and anger, hoping that wine will at least slosh around in the pit of his stomach and make him feel whole, if only for an hour. Instead, all it does is make his head swim dizzily and his stomach bubble threateningly every so often, a low-level sort of nausea that promises worse to come later, which he ignores in favour of drinking more.

‘My wife is pregnant,’ Philippe says, the edge on his words sharp enough to cut, and the Chevalier barely even responds.

‘Oh,’ he says, in as disdainful a tone as he can manage, and leaves them.

* * *

 

He spies Philippe and his little pet – infuriatingly, returned with Louis – at cards in the salon the next morning, as Philippe turns to Thomas with a broad smile on his face and a doelike look in his blue eyes. They share a laugh as they depart the table, pressed close together as they walk, clearly thick as thieves despite their separation during Louis’ campaign. He watches dully, but doesn’t say a word; doesn’t even approach them. As soon as Philippe’s eyes catch his, cold as ice, he turns away and departs.

He returns to their – no, Philippe’s – rooms, where he takes a large swallow from his bottle just as Monsieur himself walks through the door. He’s trembling, whether from the powder or his raging emotions he does not know. He feels nothing but a rise of the same crippling anger and grief that filled him during their previous fight, throat thick, eyes stinging, heart beating against the constriction of his ribs hard enough to bruise. He has been doing nothing but imagining Philippe and Thomas together – against his will, of course – for the past half hour, and the jealousy is making his blood boil. His head pounds as hard as his heart and he bites his lip, trying to contain the words before they burst from his mouth:

‘Where were you?’

It instantly gears Philippe up for a fight. ‘What business is it of yours?’

‘You’re  _ fucking _ him, aren’t you?’ the Chevalier spits, his voice wavering.

Philippe slams a heavy bag of coins down on the table. ‘We devised a deft game at cheating at the card table. That,’ he shouts, ‘hardly constitutes consummation!’

‘See,’ the Chevalier mumbles, drifting over to him, ‘you can’t even deny it.’ He grasps the bag of coins with a thump, heart rate rising. ‘I want to know exactly what you’ve been up to.’

‘You’re drunk,’ Philippe says brusquely, his eyes on the Chevalier’s face, twisting with anger.  _ Of course I’m drunk _ , the Chevalier wants to spit at him. He’s been drowning his sorrows in alcohol and powders from the beginning of this whole sorry venture, and it can’t be much of a surprise now, after all this time. His temper frays, and instead, he simply lashes out.

‘Don’t patronise me!’ the Chevalier yells, throwing the coins at the wall; the bag hits the bedpost with a solid metallic clunk and falls in a shower of gold to the floor, coins spilling out of a tear in the seam. He is a living hurricane all over again, a maelstrom of conflict and misery that lashes out at the first thing it lands upon.

‘There are bigger things going on here,’ Philippe tells him, in that infuriatingly calm voice, as though speaking to a child having a tantrum. The Chevalier rolls his eyes, and Philippe glowers at him. ‘You have no idea what this is about.’

‘THE WHOLE FUCKING SALON KNOWS WHAT’S GOING ON!’ he shouts, and his lip trembles. He has seen them at the card tables, as has every other member of court. ‘Do you have to rub my nose in it?’

Philippe turns away, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger in exasperation before elaborating.

‘It’s complicated. I can’t explain it right now.’

‘Maybe this will help you find the right words,’ the Chevalier slurs, and draws his pistol, aiming squarely at the Prince’s back in his lilac coat. Of course he doesn’t intend to fire, not at Philippe, but there is a comforting weight to the mechanism of steel and wood in his hand, and he feels it’s a wonderful metaphor for himself at the moment. Primed and ready to explode at the slightest mishandling. His arm shakes as Philippe turns around, taking in the gun pointing at him, the Chevalier’s trembling arm, his face set in drunken determination. He holds out his arms, an open invitation to shoot if the Chevalier is brave enough. The murder of a Prince of Bourbon will, after all, carry the death penalty, plus torture for treason no doubt. The Chevalier’s aim is no steadier, but he doesn’t lower his pistol.

‘You dare threaten me?’ Philippe asks, almost breathless with incredulity.

‘No,’ the Chevalier murmurs, his face slackening as he lowers his pistol, ‘I have a much better idea.’ He raises the pistol to his temple.

‘You’re bluffing,’ Philippe tells him, picking up the Chevalier’s wine glass from the table and refilling it, ‘you probably didn’t even load it properly.’

The Chevalier smiles, laughing, which quickly turns to sobs as he chokes out, ‘You really want to know how much I feel for you? You want to know what’s really in my heart? Let me show you.’ He cocks the pistol with a click and raises it to hold the barrel pointing through his open mouth towards the top of his head. Philippe lunges at him, dragging the pistol away, and as the Chevalier tries to wrest it away from him, he squeezes the trigger, firing at and shattering a mirror hanging on the wall behind them. Philippe stares at him with wide eyes,  _ frightened _ eyes, as the Chevalier brings a hand up to stroke his cheek. Monsieur throws him bodily to the floor, face still blanched white with panic, leaving him cowering in a crumpled heap by the bed.

‘I don’t even recognise you any more,’ he says, voice shaking. ‘You stay away from me!’

The guards burst in and nearly trample on the Chevalier, who hasn’t moved from where he fell, sobbing. His entire body hurts, the sobs wracking his chest feeling like sandpaper in his lungs, his head thick and heavy and painful from the mix of alcohol and tears. The expression in Philippe’s eyes, that wild, ice-grey panic, is seared onto the insides of his eyelids; it’s all he can see as he lies there on the floor, heartbroken and ashamed, his hair thankfully providing a thin veil at least from the guards’ penetrating view.

Philippe shakes his head, unsteady. ‘He missed,’ he tells them, and heads for the door.

‘Story of his life.’

* * *

 

He sets his mind, from that moment on, to discovering exactly what Philippe means by ‘bigger things’. He is waiting, hidden behind the curtain sashes, in the darkened antechamber when the click of a closing door rouses him from his doze. He recognises Philippe’s voice wishing someone a goodbye, and sees Thomas pass through the lit hallway a second later. Throwing his bundled coat on over his shoulders, he creeps after him, careful not to let his heels make a noise over the flagstone hallway.

Thomas makes his way down the servant stairwell and out towards the stableyard, where he presses something into the hand of another cloaked person before the Chevalier has to duck quickly out of sight when he turns around. When he hears footsteps move away, he peers around the door of the coach house he’s hidden in before skirting his way around the outside of the buildings, pressing himself against the stableyard walls. The cool, reassuring steel of a blade against the inside of his wrist grounds him, and he pulls it out in preparation before stepping into the courtyard, eyes darting warily from side to side. He hears a noise behind him and whirls; before he manages to get a good look, a hand claps him on the shoulder and turns him around to land a heavy punch square in the jaw that fells him like a tree.

A foot connects between his legs and he chokes out a gasp, rolling on the floor in agony before struggling to his feet, waving his knife wildly. His assailant simply smacks the knife out of his hand with a well-aimed backhand blow, before their knee raises to connect with his stomach, again toppling him onto his back and knocking the wind from his lungs. His assailant rebuffs every attempt he makes at staggering upright, vicious blows to his chest and stomach designed to incapacitate before a group of men pick him up by the arms and legs and Thomas melts away into the darkness.

‘I’m very grateful,’ he gasps, blood trickling down over his lips and chin from his nose, ‘thank you, I will see that each one of you – hold on a second!’ The men holding him up rifle through his pockets, laughing and jeering, ignoring his attempts to claw them away and fight back. ‘This is an outrage!’ he shrieks, ‘Damn you, you fucking scum!’ He aims a blow at those nearest to him, before a giant of a man with a shaven head kicks him in the face and he collapses, unconscious, to the floor.

He comes around bootless, stockingless, and without any of his finer garments; in fact, only his shirt (barely even buttoned up) and his breeches remain intact. He staggers, covered in blood, back to the main building of the palace and up to Philippe’s rooms, where he manages to cross the threshold and fixes his lover with a glare that could kill, spitting ‘Look what you’ve done to me now!’ (and a great deal of blood) out of his mouth. ‘Compliments of your new lover!’

Philippe immediately puts his book aside, climbing out of his chair to approach him. ‘Thomas?’ he asks, and the Chevalier takes a mirror from the chest of drawers and hobbles over to the table.

‘I didn’t see his face, but it had to be him, I was  _ following _ the oleaginous little shit.’

‘Why?’

The Chevalier drops down into Philippe’s vacated chair, placing the mirror on the table and rolling his head back against the back of the chair. ‘Because I wanted to discuss the weather over Armagnac and macaroons,’ he says sarcastically, ‘why do you  _ think _ ?’

Philippe dips a cloth into the jug of water on the table and kneels beside the chair, brushing the Chevalier’s hair back with careful fingers, and presses the cloth gently to the weeping cut on the Chevalier’s cheek. He hollers and starts away, making Philippe jump, and snatches the cloth off him.

‘You’re making it worse!’

‘Why won’t you let me help you?’ Philippe asks, his voice gentle, patient, his Philippe voice instead of whatever dour, humourless changeling the Chevalier has been dealing with for the past few months since his new wife arrived, and the Chevalier whips his head around to glare at him.

‘Because this is all your fault!’ He throws the cloth down and climbs out of the chair. ‘I’ll go right now,  and I’ll kill him properly this time!’

Philippe lunges after him, grabbing him by the arm. ‘You can’t!’

‘I have my honour to think of, and so should you!’ the Chevalier shoots back.

‘You mustn’t cause him any more trouble. We have to leave him alone,’ Philippe says, his voice almost worried, which only serves to stoke the fire of the Chevalier’s temple. Concern for himself, he can understand, and would gladly support. Concern for the little weasel who has been tormenting the both of them for the past too long, however, sets his blood on fire.

‘Why?’ he spits.

‘Ah – Trust me!’ Philippe insists, ‘it’s important!’

‘Trust you?’ the Chevalier repeats, raising his eyebrows. ‘Seriously?’

Philippe’s face softens, his worried expression turning towards the cuts and bruises on the Chevalier’s face, and he reaches out towards him before the Chevalier slaps his hands away viciously, gritting his teeth.

‘Get your hands off me!’

‘I love you!’ Philippe bursts out, his voice wavering slightly, and the Chevalier can only stare, eyes wide and mouth agape. They are words he feels he has been waiting an entire lifetime to hear, and the frightened, worrisome expression in Philippe’s equally wide blue eyes holds him captured. ‘But Thomas has to be left alone!’ He gazes deeply at the Chevalier, willing him to understand, but he comprehends nothing, not even the proclamation of love. ‘We both need to show a brave face,’ Philippe continues. ‘Can you do that? For me?’

The Chevalier looks at him for another long moment before rolling his eyes, an acquiescence, and saying tiredly, ‘Run me a bath.’

* * *

 

‘Where the fuck have you been?’ he greets Philippe bitterly from his chair the next time they see one another, jealousy seething in his chest. ‘You were with him, weren’t you?’

Philippe ignores his question, pouring himself a glass of water. ‘I’m not going to have this conversation with you.’

‘Then I’m going round to your little sweetheart right now and I’m going to rip his throat out,’ the Chevalier hisses, removing the blanket from around his torso. He’s stopped feeling jealous of Thomas and now only feels an all-consuming rage, determined to grind the little bastard into a pulp against the cobblestones of the courtyard, but only after he’s poked him full of holes with the largest, sharpest sword he can find first.

‘You’re not going to do anything of the kind because you’re a notorious coward,’ Philippe retorts, ‘and he’s not my sweetheart.’

The Chevalier glowers at him as he takes a sip of his water, throwing himself up out of his chair and approaching Philippe with shoulders squared. ‘I’m a coward, am I? Do you really want to see how brave I can be?’

‘Look,’ Philippe grits out, ‘it’s not what you think!’

‘I think he’s a snivelling little bastard,’ the Chevalier growls, picking his coat up from the bed, ‘and I’ll kill him!’ He turns to leave, and Philippe almost allows him to for a moment before apparently deciding that their thousandth fight is not worth it.

‘It’s a charade,’ he says. ‘Louis is using me to feed information to the Dutch.  _ That’s _ why I’m flirting with him.’

The Chevalier turns in the doorway and snorts. ‘I’ve heard some lame excuses in my time,’ before turning away in disgust and stalking out of their chambers.

The last laugh is, of course, on him, if the situation had been anything to laugh about. Instead he bursts into Philippe’s bedchambers at the exact moment that Thomas is wielding Philippe’s knife above his unconscious body on the floor. His heart stops in his chest, eyes fixated on the metallic gleam of the knife in the moonlight from the window, and he can’t breathe for the seconds – or hours – he stands there, paralysed with fear. His appearance at the door startles the little cunt, however, and Thomas leaps out of the window whilst the Chevalier yells for the guards. 

The Chevalier immediately dives across the room to Philippe, panic flooding all of his senses; the sight of his beloved lifeless on the floor, covered in blood, is an image he’s seen in many a nightmare. There’s blood all over Philippe’s face, trickling down over his jaw from his nose, and his eyes are wide open and staring at nothing, which is what scares the Chevalier the most. Blue eyes glassy, wide open and staring up at nothing in a milk-white face, the same as the girl floating in the fountain with her dark hair haloed around her in the water much like the spill of Philippe’s ink-black curls around his face on the floor…

‘My love,’ he gasps, hands fluttering anxiously over Philippe’s shoulders, too afraid to touch him in case of doing more harm. Philippe doesn’t respond, doesn’t even blink to show that he’s registered the Chevalier’s voice in his ears, so he must still be out cold. He frets terribly, screaming for the guards again – he swears it didn’t take them this long when they heard the gun firing in Philippe’s rooms during their fight, and from the state of Philippe something terrible must have happened between him and Thomas which the guards evidently blithely ignored. The thought makes his blood boil, but the guards finally appear, bursting equally frantically through the door, and he simmers down when one checks the window whilst the others attend to Philippe. The Chevalier quickly takes his leave once he has established – if only barely – that Philippe is indeed breathing, and chases Thomas out into the courtyard, where a cloaked Sophie and a guardsman hold two saddled horses. 

Thomas crosses the garden towards her, her face splitting into a relieved smile, and the Chevalier raises his pistol, his arm steady this time and his aim true. The gun fires in a small shower of sparks, and Thomas collapses to the grass, Sophie pressing a gloved hand to her mouth to stifle her shriek. The Chevalier steps forward out of the smoke to watch the body convulse on the ground, a thin trickle of blood out of the corner of his mouth as he chokes on whatever words he’s trying to say around the blood bubbling up his throat. The Chevalier truly is not what he would call a violent or sadistic man, he takes no real pleasure in harming others who have not harmed him, but he stands and watches the spectacle with a cool satisfaction in his eyes as Thomas breathes his last.

Marchal and the palace guards run through the gates just as Sophie is swinging herself up into the saddle and she gallops away as Marchal orders for the guards to hold fire, his gaze turning to the Chevalier, resting his pistol over his shoulder.

* * *

 

Philippe is standing, regal, in front of the mirror, a gold sash over his shoulder, preparing to leave for war.

‘And if you are killed,’ the Princess asks, her hand on her stomach, ‘what of our son?’

‘You’ll find someone else to take the role of the father,’ Philippe tells her, not unkindly, as his gaze lingers on the Chevalier at the window. ‘We will write to each other every day,’ he promises. ‘I want a full report on your health and wellbeing. And remember, this is Versailles,’ he smiles, leaning in close. ‘You should be happy!’

She laughs tearfully, attempting a smile at least for his sake, and he smiles back before turning to the Chevalier again.

‘How do I look?’

‘Passable,’ he answers thickly, his voice quiet, keeping his arms crossed over his chest as if thinking that they could somehow hold in all of the emotion threatening to break out. He is terrified of history repeating itself; Philippe going off to war and returning somehow changed, a new circumstance to turn his life upside down and send him spiralling down this whole road again until he’s mangled and twisted things between them so far that they can never be recovered and they end up hating each other bitterly until the end of their days, with no memory of the sweeter, sunlight days of before.

‘I thought you’d be happy for me,’ Philippe protests gently, and the Chevalier turns to look at him.

‘And I thought you’d be grateful to me. Didn’t I save your life?’ Philippe doesn’t answer, so the Chevalier crosses the room, eyes narrowing, his voice wobbling with the strength of the emotions he is struggling to keep a cap on. He is a roiling mess inside: relief at Philippe’s survival over the events of the previous night, relief at being rid at last of Thomas, the hope of things being returned to normal and that hope being dashed as he watched Philippe order his trunks packed ready for the battlefield, adrenaline from finding Philippe on the floor and chasing down Thomas, love, grief, anger, desperation, sadness. All bubbling away inside him as they have been for months, and he has no more control over them now than he did before. His is still painfully vulnerable here under Philippe’s gaze, and they both know it. ‘So why risk it now on a stupid battlefield?’

Philippe’s eyes are glazed with tears, his lower lip trembling, as he answers. ‘I will always love you, but there are things that I must do before I can love you again.’ He butts his forehead against the Chevalier’s gently, both of them feeling the other trembling as they fight to keep control. He nuzzles at the Chevalier’s forehead, trying to make him lift his chin, and eventually he simply takes the Chevalier’s chin in his hand and forces him to look at him, ignoring the hitch in his breathing. ‘As I wish, and as you deserve.’

He leans in, slowly, so slowly, as though he is afraid the Chevalier will shy away from him, and tentatively presses their lips together. The Chevalier sags into it – when was the last time they had kissed? Truly, properly? Weeks? Months, even, perhaps? – and his hand reaches hesitantly for Philippe’s chest, feeling his heart beating firmly against his palm. He exhales shakily into the kiss and Philippe breaks away, his thumb smoothing the lightly-stubbled skin of the Chevalier’s cheek. He beams as the Chevalier forces a tearful smile, tipping his lover’s head down to press an affectionate kiss to his forehead, and the smile he pulls away with is like a thousand stars, his eyes as bright as twin suns. He is never more beautiful than in this moment, wholly open and accepting, even of the Chevalier’s many flaws, and the Chevalier has never felt so loved, despite the fact that it is a farewell.

‘Go,’ he whispers, sniffing tears back, and Philippe takes a deep breath, collecting his swords. He glances back as he is escorted out by his captain and guard to see the Princess and the Chevalier, side by side, his two loves on the wide green earth. Liselotte reaches out to take the Chevalier’s hand, and they entwine their fingers, a united front in their goodbyes.


End file.
